


The Old Rules Don't Apply

by Prince_of_Elsinore



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: (canon-past-mentioned only), Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Canon-Typical Violence, Casual Sex, Father/Son Incest, First Time, Future Fic, Hand Jobs, M/M, Not Underage, Parent/Child Incest, Voyeurism, between secondary pairings only--it's the Z-poc and basically everyone is having a lot of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-17 00:57:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9297185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prince_of_Elsinore/pseuds/Prince_of_Elsinore
Summary: “What does it feel like,” Carl begins, halting, one word at a time; “to be loved, physically, by someone who really loves you?  Can you tell me?”“It feels like being whole,” Rick whispers, and Carl can feel the ghost of his words against his neck, chilling the sweat that’s gathered there.And Carl feels it again, stronger than ever.  He thinks he knows what it means now: the tug, tug, tug…“Can you show me?”...Takes place in the future; Carl is about 20.  He and Rick have lost the family and home they had in Alexandria and have moved on but not settled down.  They've found a group and a camp for now, but they aren't tied to it.  They've been out on an extended run when a casual late-night conversation takes an unexpected turn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic came from reading an article (https://www.inverse.com/article/11387-the-walking-dead-doesn-t-get-sex-because-it-fetishizes-apocalyptic-love) about how unrealistic the portrayal of sex and relationships is on TWD. Basically, in a real apocalypse situation, people would be having way more casual sex and monogamous relationships would be far rarer. That's the assumption this fic is based on, ergo why Rick and Carl have both had so many previous partners.
> 
> As should be obvious from the tags, this fic contains father/son incest. You've been warned. Don't like, don't read, and definitely don't bother leaving a comment.
> 
> Otherwise, hope y'all enjoy! This is my first TWD fic. Comments are much appreciated.
> 
> [Update: This fic was originally listed as having three chapters, but was discontinued. I've changed it to be complete at two chapters instead of going through with my original plan for the ending. This means it finishes more open-ended than originally intended, but feel free to imagine any future for these two that you'd like.]

“I saw the way she was lookin’ at you. All I’m sayin’ is, you gotta be careful.”

“Dad.” Carl rolls his eyes as he tries to get comfortable on the lumpy mattress. There’s a spring digging into his hip.

“I know it may seem simple to go in for the quick an’ easy, but it can get complicated real quick. Jus’ take precautions. Last thing you need’s to knock some girl up. ’S’dangerous. You don’ wanna be responsible for that.”

“ _Dad_.” Carl huffs and pulls his jacket tighter around him. Nights are starting to get cold and the rotting wooden walls around them don’t do much to keep out the chill. A blanket would be nice; soft, warm. At least a change of clothes. His feel stiff with dried sweat. They haven’t had any time for washing in the past several days on their run.

“Hey, no need to get uppity. Jus’ some friendly advice.” His father stretches out his limbs on the other side of the bed, struggling to find a comfortable position as well. “That’s my job, isn’t it? Keep you outta trouble.”

Carl snorts. _Uppity_. Like he’s still some hot-headed thirteen-year-old with a handgun and a bad attitude. “I can take care of myself.” He knows to use protection, in any case.

“Sure,” Rick says lightly.

Carl can tell he only says it to appease him. That irritates him. He turns over to frown at his father.

“Why are you bringing it up now anyway? That was weeks ago.” And this is the most he’s heard his father speak in days.

“Well, when we get back—”

“ _If_ they’re still there.”

Rick looks at him then. His eyes are inscrutable as he holds Carl’s gaze, just visible in the murky darkness, then looks away again. “Well. Jus’ wanted to talk to you before then. Haven’t had a good chance yet. But we got a pretty secure place here. Thought we could chat.”

Carl sighs and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling beams. Exposed joists. Must have been someone’s country getaway once upon a time. Fittingly rustic.

“Dad, we’re not even…” He’s not sure how to say it. He can’t help but feel embarrassed. “We didn’t sleep together. And we’re not going to,” he states finally. “If I even ever see her again,” he mutters as a dark afterthought.

“Oh.” Rick sounds genuinely surprised, but his voice is gentle. “I thought—hm. She seemed interested.”

“She was.”

“So…?”

“So? Do I have to have sex with every girl that looks at me twice?”

Rick scoffs. “’Course not.”

“Well.”

“Well. Okay.”

Rick seems content to drop the subject—he’s never been great talking about it—and Carl gives an inward sigh of relief. But now that his father’s brought it up, Carl’s mind keeps churning it over. The girl he’d met, only a few weeks ago: she was plain but not unattractive. Definitely into him. It would have been easy. She was just looking for a quick fuck. Normally, he would have taken it. Rick knows that, too. But this time, Carl had avoided her.

His mind flips through all the girls he’s had sex with in the past two years. Considering the relative rarity of meeting new people, it isn’t an insignificant number. Plus that one guy. Just a handjob. Carl hasn’t mentioned that one to Rick, doesn’t think he knows. Not that his dad would be bothered by it—there’s just no reason for him to know. Still, he often seems to catch on when Carl’s hooked up with someone. He doesn’t usually comment on it, though. They haven’t had any form of “the Talk” in a long while, and Carl is grateful for it.

But now… so many questions have been swirling around his head lately it makes him dizzy. He tries not to think about them, only let them come to the surface one at a time, but they start to pile up, impossible to ignore, like the dead clawing at a fence. He thinks he knows why he didn’t want to sleep with that girl.

Carl has gotten good at hiding how he aches, how he longs, has buried it so deep he almost forgets it’s there sometimes. But then it rears its head again at the most unexpected moments: like when he’s about to slip into sleep, but then the emptiness takes hold of him, makes him feel terrifyingly alone, even if Rick is there on the cot next to his; or, strangely, in the silence when his father passes him the can of peas they’re sharing for their dinner, one plastic spoon between the two of them, and he’s sure Rick thinks he’s tricking him into eating the greater share, except that Carl notices, he always notices; or in the sound their boots make against the gravel as they walk side by side, in sync, and there’s not a single being living or dead in sight, and he could almost believe he and his father are the last humans on earth. Carl’s not entirely sure what spurs the feeling, nor what would satisfy it. Certainly not a half-hour of fooling around with some Jane Doe he might never see again. He wants more.

He feels it now, lying on a moldy mattress in a cabin in the middle of nowhere; an emptiness in his gut that has nothing to do with the slim rations they’ve been living on, and a tightness in his chest that tugs, tugs, tugs…

“It’s just…” he starts, before he can even think what it is he wants to say.

Apparently Rick isn’t asleep yet, because he turns his head to his son attentively, waits.

“…Never mind,” Carl backtracks. He isn’t sure what he could possibly get out of trying to talk to his dad about this.

“Hey. You can tell me.”

Carl hesitates, settles on a different approach. He’s not sure he should bring it up, but his father is waiting.

“You’ve been lucky. First you had Mom, then Michonne…”

Rick is silent a moment. Carl doesn’t dare continue. He hears his father swallow.

“They’re gone now,” is all he says.

Carl’s chest hurts. He knows it’s painful for them both, but he has to make his father understand. “But at least you got to know.”

“Know what?” Rick’s voice is hoarse.

 _The things I don’t. The things I want to know._ That’s what he wants to say, but he doesn’t.

“Why did you hook up with that woman?” he asks instead, and he sees his father’s head turn sharply towards him. Carl remembers her name— _Suzanne_ —but it doesn’t seem significant enough to bother mentioning. Besides, Rick knows who he means. “Yeah, I know you did. I saw you two.”

“You were watchin’?”

Carl blinks. It’s not a question he was expecting. He can’t decipher his father’s tone, but he doesn’t sound angry or disgusted, at least.

He licks his lips. “Not… on purpose.”

It’s the truth; he leaves out the fact that after he stumbled on them, he didn’t leave. Some morbid curiosity, something to do with that tug in his chest, that longing in his gut, compelled Carl to stay and watch. His father looked different than he’d ever seen him before, and part of him wanted to understand that. Something about the intensity of the act reminded Carl of how Rick looked in the thick of a fight, but his gaze was too soft, too needy, nothing of the calm focus he had when killing.

Carl tries to ignore how, even thinking back on it now, the ache inside him swells, heat flares in his belly—just embarrassment, guilt. Just a perfectly natural reaction to witnessing a carnal act, he tells himself.

Carl shoves the thought aside. “Answer the question,” he presses, hoping his father will leave his unintentional act of voyeurism aside.

Fortunately, Rick’s cooperative. “Why did I do it?” He stretches and sighs. “Well, she was willin’.”

“That’s it?”

Rick shrugs, scratches his beard. “Body has needs. I think you know that well as me.” He sounds slightly awkward on the topic. “’S’good to just, get away from it all for a few minutes. Feel somethin’.”

“Something physical.”

“Well, yeah.”

“You didn’t…” Carl licks his chapped lips. “You don’t love her.”

Ricks’ head snaps back to him and Carl can hear more than see the raised eyebrow. “What? ’Course not.”

Carl nods. “Yeah.”

Rick is silent a moment. “That bother you?” he asks softly.

Carl shrugs. “No,” he replies honestly.

His father sighs. “Yeah. Somehow that’s not a relief.” He runs a hand through his curls. “I guess part of me feels guilty, settin’ that example for you. Wish I could tell you I did love her, that I loved every woman I been with.”

“Why?” Carl’s nose scrunches up in confusion.

Rick is quiet again. Carl can tell he’s considering his answer.

“The way things used to be… I woulda never done that. Not while I was with your mother, that’s for sure. And even if we split up, I wouldn’t want you thinkin’ that’s something to aspire to. Y’know, sex, just to fill whatever emptiness you’re feelin’. But… it’s different now, I think. I still have to remind myself sometimes. The old rules don’t apply.”

“But doesn’t it… get old?” Carl ventures. “I mean, it doesn’t really fill the emptiness, does it? Just makes you forget it for a little while.”

Rick looks at him again. Carl can’t read his expression in the scant moonlight filtering into the room through the tattered window curtain.

“Don’t you ever… want something more?” he presses. He feels it’s urgent.

His father turns so Carl sees his profile again, barely silhouetted against the window.  
“…I don’t think about that much anymore,” he rasps.

Carl’s chest burns, like he needs to know, like everything depends on it, even if he doesn’t know why. “But it was better, wasn’t it? With Lori, with Michonne?”

Rick swallows again. Harder, this time. “Yeah, it was,” he says at last, his voice tight.

Carl lets out a shaky breath. _There it is._ Somehow, it doesn’t lessen the pressure constricting his chest.

“Sometimes…” he starts, hesitant. He’s never spoken to his father so directly about this sort of thing before, but perhaps it’s time. Maybe Rick will finally give him some clarity, some guidance, and Carl feels so lost, so helpless, in this regard.

“I think I’m never going to know what that feels like,” he says slowly, weighing each word on his tongue. They feel strange in his mouth. “To be with someone I love. Who loves me. It’s just gonna be quickies in the back of a truck my whole life,” he finishes in a mumble. He’s propped up on an elbow now, facing his father to gauge his reaction as well as possible.

Rick adjusts himself to face his son. “Hey, I had my share of quick ones in the back of a truck with Michonne back in the day. Hell, even Lori. Doesn’t mean you don’t love ’em,” he responds lightly.

Carl knows is father is avoiding the point. He hangs his head. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just…” And now he’s really hit a roadblock. How to make him understand? Carl hurts more than ever, like there’s a cord tied tight around something behind his sternum and drawn like a bowstring. He’s not sure where this conversation is going, where he even wanted it to go in the first place.

He’s surprised to feel his father’s coarse fingers under his chin, tilting it upward, and even more surprised to hear the tenderness in his voice. “Speak your mind, son.”

Carl blinks, wets his lips, subconsciously leans closer after the hand leaves his chin, chasing the warm touch. “Sometimes,” he whispers, “I think you’re the only person in the world who loves me, who will _ever_ love me. I know you’re the only person in the world I love.” He’s not sure where the words come from, but as he speaks them he knows they’re true.

Rick seems stunned for a moment. He looks around him, gathers his thoughts. “Now, I know that’s not true. There are people, Carl, people who care about you and—”

“But it’s not the same anymore, is it?” Carl breaks him off, fisting the front of his father’s shirt in frustration, or desperation, he’s not sure. “They’re not family. I can’t let them get too close. We’ll just lose them. Again.” His voice is ragged suddenly, wrecked as though he’s been crying for hours. “That’s what happens. People get taken from you. They always get taken from you. You’re the only one I’ve still got.”

He shifts his grip, bringing his other hand up to grasp at the shirt as well, rubbing the worn cloth between his fingers. His stomach is in knots, worse than the hunger pangs he’s had in the past days. “And even if—even if I care a little bit about them, it’s not the same. I could never—no one is ever going to do the things for me that you do. No one’s ever going to love me as much as you do.”

“Carl…” Rick sounds pained. Carl is suddenly glad he can’t clearly see the expression in his father’s eyes.

Carl is tense and far too warm, despite the cool air. Heat flushes from his cheeks down his neck and over his chest. He can feel it radiating off of his father, too; to Carl’s touch, it feels like Rick is almost burning beneath his thin shirt.

“What does it feel like,” Carl begins, halting, one word at a time; “to be loved, physically, by someone who really loves you?” The heat is unbearable. He licks his lips again. “Can you tell me?”

Rick is silent for a long moment. There’s nothing but the fever in his skin and the sound of their heavy breaths mingling, as if they’d both just fought off a pack of the dead.

“It feels like being whole,” Rick whispers, and Carl can feel the ghost of his words against his neck, chilling the sweat that’s gathered there.

Carl’s hands uncurl from the fabric of his father’s shirt to splay against his chest. Solid. Warm. So alive: rising and falling with each breath, thumping with the strong heart inside, just a bit too fast. Excited. Or nervous.

And Carl feels it again, stronger than ever. He thinks he knows what it means now: the tug, tug, tug…

“Can you show me?”

His whisper hangs in the humid air between them. Every nerve ending in his body is alert, like a million spark plugs that only need the slightest touch to set them off. He’s never needed so badly, wanted so badly, in his life; not just from his groin like it usually feels with a one-off, but from that spot right in the center of his chest, the center of the all the aching and emptiness.

Rick brings his hands up to cover Carl’s—his father’s are still larger, still more callused—and pull them away from his chest. He doesn’t let them go, just holds them in comfortingly rough warmth.

Rick’s voice is hushed when he speaks and, Carl thinks, unbearably sad. “It’s not like that. It’s different.”

His words twist the hurt inside Carl even tighter. He winces.

“Why is it different?” he strains.

Rick looks at him, still cradling his son’s hands. “It just is.”

Carl’s throat is closed. He can’t get air, he can’t speak. He shakes his head until finally he finds his voice, unsteady and with an edge of desperation he wishes he could hide.

“It doesn’t have to be. You can show me. Please, show me.”

It’s Rick’s turn to shake his head, search for the words.

“I don’t think I can,” he breathes finally, and it sounds like an apology.

Carl’s eyes screw shut. He grips his father’s hands as if they’re his last lifeline.

“Why not?”

Rick squeezes back.

“You’re my son.”

Carl inhales a deep, quavering breath. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“You’re still living by the old rules. The old rules don’t apply.”

“Maybe these ones do,” Rick responds earnestly. “Or they should, at least. I don’t—I don’t have all the answers, Carl. I don’t know what the rules are in this world, if there are any. Don’t blame me for hangin’ on to the only ones that still make any sense to me,” he pleads.

Carl opens his eyes. He doesn’t look at his father; he gazes past him at the window, the pale light outside. His grip slackens.

“I won’t. I don’t,” he says quietly, subdued.

“Carl—” Rick begins, but Carl can’t hear it. Not now. He turns away from his father, pulls his jacket around him tight as he can.

“I just wanna sleep,” he says hollowly. He does feel tired, suddenly. Utterly exhausted.

Rick is silent. Carl hopes that’s the end of it, that he’ll just be allowed to sink into the oblivion of sleep and forget this ever happened.

Still, he’s not surprised to hear his father’s voice behind him after a few painfully stretched moments.

“You will find someone. Carl, you will. Like I found Michonne. Like Glenn and Maggie found each other.” The distress in his voice tells Carl he’s trying to convince himself, too.

Carl rolls back over, everything he’d managed to suppress forcing its way to the surface once more.

“How can you say that?” His voice is harsher than he means it to be, but he doesn’t mind enough to soften his tone. “Where’s Glenn now? And Michonne? And Enid? How long do we have? Each day I don’t know if it’s going to be the last day you’re here, or if it’s my last day. How can you look at me and tell me, promise me, that I’ll find someone before it’s too late?”

He doesn’t realize he’s spilled tears until his father reaches out and brushes one from his cheek. His hand comes to rest, heavy and warm, in its familiar spot on the back of Carl’s neck.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Rick whispers, and he is. Carl can tell he is, has never heard his father sound so incredibly sorry in his life.

But he still can’t eliminate the spite from his voice completely when he retorts, “For what?”

Rick doesn’t answer for a long moment. When he does, he sounds shattered, so agonized Carl almost has to turn away in shame.

“That you have to grow up in this world.”

Carl closes his eyes, concentrates on the feeling of Rick’s hand on his skin, such a familiar comfort. He breathes in through his nose, sighs, finally manages to meet his father’s gaze.

“Don’t be,” he says, calmly, emphatically. “I’m not. What would you be to me if things were still the way they used to be? You’d be my dad,” he states, matter-of-fact. “Still with mom. Arguing over money. Putting me through college. You’d come to my graduation, my wedding. We’d talk on the phone sometimes. We’d tell each other ‘I love you,’ but what would that even mean? In this world—you’ve kept me alive, you’ve kept me safe, for this long. You would kill for me. You have, I’ve seen you do it. All the time. It’s real, not just some abstract idea—‘I’d kill for you’—no. You _do_.”

Carl licks his lips, breathing heavily. Rick’s still holding the back of his neck, motionless, hanging onto every word. Carl holds his gaze.

“I’ve seen what you’ll do,” he continues, voice lower. “I’ve seen you rip a man’s throat out with your teeth. I’ve seen you gut the man that attacked me like a pig. I’ve seen you smash in the skulls of walkers with your own hands and put bullets through peoples’ heads because they threatened us. Because they threatened me. And…” He breathes out shakily, looking straight into his father’s eyes. “I like watching you do it.”

Rick only stares back, his lips slightly parted and his breathing labored. As if under a spell. Carl’s hands find their way back to his father’s shirt.

“When I see you kill for me—” Carl murmurs. “I know. The way I feel with you… safe, full of calm and purpose, ready for anything, because I’d kill for you, too. In a heartbeat. And when I see you putting bullets and axes into every body, living or dead, that comes near me—” He breaks off, suddenly overwhelmed. His fingers clench against Rick’s chest, and the ache and desire have never been stronger. He’s being tugged in again, closer, inexorable, irresistible.

“I think… I know then,” he whispers, hoarse, nearly delirious with want. He’s trembling, on the edge of something, a precipice, but he isn’t scared. He isn’t scared because his father is there, his hands are on him, anchoring him, he can feel his warmth all over and Carl knows, if he falls Rick will catch him; he always catches him.

“I know, what love feels like,” he finally manages, each word wrenched up from depths he didn’t know he contained, raw and full of yearning.

The cord from his sternum connects them, his father and him; he can feel it now. He wonders if it’s always been that way—if he’d followed its tug sooner, if it always would have led him to Rick waiting at the other end. It’s pulled taut now, an insistent thrum of need.

“I know, just a fraction of what it would feel like to be with you—” His whisper is heated, his skin buzzing, heart pounding.

“ _Show me_.”

Rick’s breath is coming in heavy gasps, his hands clutching at Carl, tangling in his hair, dragging him closer, tugging—

“ _Carl_.”

“Show me, _please_ —I wanna know what it feels like, please, show me, show me—”

It becomes his mantra, spilling from his lips as his father grasps him to his chest, cradles his head, rubs his large palms in firm strokes down his spine and back up, making him shiver, still panting it out: _show me, show me_ …

Rick’s mouth is by his ear, hot and moist, whispering nonsense mixed with fractured words of comfort— _baby boy, it’s okay, gonna be alright_. Carl is curled tight into his father’s flat, broad chest, can hear his heart hammering right next to his ear. He feels lips at his jaw and nearly cries out, clutching his father’s collar even tighter.

Ricks hands push up inside Carl’s shirt, fingers spreading over stomach and ribs, all while he still shushes him, _hush, hush, baby boy, my baby boy,_ but it’s too much, the sensations are too much for Carl to keep quiet. He writhes and whines like he hasn’t since he was a boy, he’s begging and he doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore.

 _Gonna be okay, gonna be okay_ echoes in his head over and over, breathed hotly against his neck where he feels the scratch of his father’s beard, the dampness of what might be tears. He groans, feels fingers brush low on his stomach.

He’s not even aware of when exactly Rick frantically undoes his belt and the front of his jeans, but when his father’s rough, hot hand finally wraps around him it’s all he knows. He doesn’t hear himself gasp with each twist, each tug, doesn’t even hear his father’s broken praise and assurances whispered into his skin, doesn’t see a single thing and he’s not even sure if his eyes are shut or open.

Carl’s lost in it, lost in how all-encompassing his father’s presence is, his smell intoxicating with his nose pressed into his chest and his days-old shirt. Rick is everywhere, all around him and he’s never felt so safe, so _loved_. He can’t actually see his father’s face, but it’s the only thing in his mind’s eye as he’s pulled higher, higher, and he can’t last like this, it’s all going to be over much too soon.

He sees the face his father made as he fucked into Suzanne on the cot of their trailer. He sees his face as he smashed in a walker’s rotting skull with a rock before it could grab his boy. He even sees his face, smeared with Joe’s blood, as he mercilessly gutted his son’s would-be rapist.

He sees his father’s face as he killed a man on the road, only a month ago. The victim was part of a group of bandits who had threatened them. The man had shot at Carl, grazed his shoulder, just barely, as he and his father got away. They found their camp again at night, and Rick killed them in their sleep, one by one. First was the man on guard, the one who shot Carl, dared to hurt him, even a little. Carl watched his father overpower him silently, his face completely calm, almost serene, as he sank his blade in behind the man’s ear, blood blossoming over his strong hands that held the man’s head almost tenderly.

Carl realizes that the way his father is cradling his head to his chest now is practically the same position. It’s with that image in his mind, of his father, bloody and perfect, that Carl finally climaxes.

He isn’t sure how long it takes him to come back to earth, but when he does he’s still quaking in his father’s arms. Rick doesn’t say anything, just holds him close, strokes his hair, rubs his neck.

Carl doesn’t speak either. There’s no need for it. He savors the security and warmth and an entirely new feeling that takes a moment to register: a deep well of contentment that’s sprung up in his core, filling every empty, aching part of him.

The serenity flowing through his veins, his father’s deep, even breaths and steady heartbeat lull him towards sleep. He burrows closer, wanting to hold onto this moment a little longer.

Just as his eyes slip closed, on the edge of slumber, he sighs out two simple words, never more deeply felt.

“ _Thank you_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't believe I got this chapter done so quickly. I can't promise the next one will be just as quick, but now that I've gotten this far I'll definitely finish it. The next chapter will be the last.
> 
> Please excuse the shameless hijacking of a Daryl/Beth scene from S4. Two characters with UST to spare being forced to hide together in a car trunk from a bunch of zombies has quickly become one of my favorite Z-poc tropes.
> 
> I love comments, so please leave one if you feel so moved! I don't bite.

Rick awakes to the gray light of early morning filtering into the room. For a moment, he’s simply aware of warmth and a comforting, familiar smell that tells him he’s home.

He inhales deeply through his nose and realizes: _Carl_.

He glances down at the top of his son’s head, still resting against his chest, and at their limbs, tangled together.

Something catches in his chest. His eyes dart around the room, as if searching for something, an answer to a question he hasn’t even had time to figure out. It takes him a moment to realize he’s not breathing. With conscious effort, he exhales. Shuts the valve, flicks the switch in his brain before he can examine his thoughts. He can’t let too much in, not yet. One thing at a time.

Rick gingerly extricates himself from his son, trying not to disturb his sleep. As he pulls away, Carl shifts slightly, seeking his warmth even in unconsciousness. Rick stills, waits for Carl to settle down again, and then rises up from the bed. He can’t help but notice how peaceful Carl’s features are, how at ease, in a way he hasn’t seen them in a long time. Emotion surges in his chest again; he turns away, running a hand over his beard, and breathes deeply, willing it to subside.

Rick looks at his watch. A bit after five. He doesn’t have to wake his son just yet.

He rummages quietly through their duffle bags, checks their water supply. They have enough that he can spare dampening a kerchief, running it over his face and hands.

That’s when he notices the stain. Small, unremarkable, on the thigh of his jeans: unmistakable.

His breath hitches. Heat creeps up his chest and neck, and this time he can’t suppress it. The images force their way through: Carl, clutching him, needing him more than Rick has seen almost since the first days after he woke up in this new, dead world; Carl, whispering, panting, begging; Carl, his single blue eye illuminated in the moonlight, looking at him but unseeing, utterly blown with bliss. His own hands, on his son’s body. Touching him in ways—

Rick clears his throat, swallows, trying to quell the stream of images and the lump of sick rising up his esophagus. He scrubs violently at the spot on his jeans, tries not to the think about what it is, what it bears witness to. Just like any other fleck of muck.

“Dad?”

Rick starts, composes himself, covering the stain with a hand as he turns halfway towards his son, peers at him from under his curls. Carl is propped up in bed, hair tousled, eyes hazy with sleep but questioning, cautious.

Rick clears his throat again, drops his gaze to the floor. “You should get up,” he says, trying to sound gentle, but his throat is rough as sandpaper. “Got a long way to go today.”

…

They’re about two days out from camp. The car they took broke down on the road, unintentionally extending their trip by nearly a week. They stick close together; it’s unfamiliar territory for them, but Rick thinks the road they’re on will meet back up with the main highway soon.

They don’t speak. They don’t look at each other much, either, at least not at the same time. Rick is sure he can feel the weight of his son’s eye on him when his back is turned, but whenever he chances a glance, Carl is focused on their surroundings, every sense alert.

Rick tries to keep his attention likewise directed, but finds his mind continuously drawn back to the cabin, to the moth-eaten mattress in the dim light and what transpired on it. Now, under the sun of a clear autumn day, it doesn’t seem real, those stolen moments in a gray otherworld. But Rick remembers how it felt, every sensation. Can still feel them in his body like echoes, imprints. He could never dream up those things. Would never have even thought to try.

And he remembers the conversation, remembers saying the words, remembers every detail of what Carl said back.

 _You’re the only person in the world who loves me, who will_ ever _love me._

_Please, show me, I want to know what it feels like._

_The old rules don’t apply._

He still senses the words between them, pulling like gravity and catching them in each other’s orbits. Him and his boy, his reason, his everything, at his side. As it’s supposed to be.

But he can’t shake the feeling of wrongness in the air. Smothering him.

He knows they should talk about it; that’s what a father ought to do. But he’s always found words difficult when it comes to Carl. It’s strange; he’s led people, united them, inspired them to fight and to make peace. Words never failed him in those situations. But with Carl, alone with his own son, he still finds himself grasping at straws. Perhaps it’s because he recognizes the weight of his words, the stakes. They’re so much higher with the future of his son than with the fate of a community.

He wishes he could read Carl like he can read other people, but even after all these years, his son remains a mystery to him in so many ways. He’s learned to accept it. It reminds him of something Father Gabriel once told him, before the man died along with so many other Alexandrians: the Virgin Mary did not understand the miracle of her son’s existence, but she trusted in Him and in the Lord’s plan. Rick was never much of a church-going man, and since the apocalypse he hardly concerns himself with questions of a God anymore, but this one utterance of that smiling fool of a wise man has stayed with him. Rick knows Carl is his miracle.

Right now, that miracle’s face is inscrutable as ever. Rick knows he must be thinking about it too, must be surreptitiously analyzing his father in equal measure, but there’s no telling what conclusions he’s drawn.

They reach the highway by midday and cover ground quickly on the open road, only stopping to dispatch the odd walker or to eat a few of the provisions remaining. The extra days have stretched rations thin; they’ve had to eat almost everything they could carry in their bags. The priority now is getting the medical supplies they scavenged back to camp.

The sun is low on the horizon when they encounter a larger group of walkers than they’ve seen that day, nearly a dozen. There’s no need for words even in the thick of the fight, they’re so in tune with each other’s instincts. They take down the pack without a hitch, but Rick glances at the dimming sky with worry. They’re both tired and he hasn’t spotted any likely place to stop for the night.

He feels a gentle hand on his arm and his heart skips a beat before he manages to look at his son. Carl simply nods down the road. Rick squints and sees what Carl’s spotted: a rusting sedan forty yards away, half-hidden with undergrowth.

They approach the vehicle, keeping an eye out for the dead. Out of habit, they do a sweep. These days, most vehicles left on the roads have been stripped of anything useful, but every once in a while something unexpected turns up, like the tool kit Carl found last month, or the stale bar of chocolate Rick retrieved from a glove compartment last year and hid for months so he could give it to Carl on his birthday. Carl still insisted on sharing the candy in the end.

Carl checks the trunk as Rick looks in the backseat. He comes up empty, glances at Carl, who simply shakes his head.

Just then, a familiar sound reaches Rick’s ears, one that sets him on edge. Carl hears it too, and instinctively they crouch down by the car, triangulating the source of the noise.

The sound of a herd of walkers is unmistakable. It doesn’t matter how many times Rick’s heard it by now; nothing makes his skin crawl like the moans of the dead.

Rick peers up the road, tries to gauge if they can get away unnoticed; but just then the front of the herd breaks free of the tree line, a mere twenty yards away. The walking corpses spill onto the road, one after the other, blocking their path.

Rick shuffles towards the trunk of the car where Carl is, and motions silently for him to get in. Carl stuffs his bags inside and crawls in after, followed by Rick, who manages to pull the trunk lid down just as the first walkers stumble by outside. He keeps it ajar and situates himself so he can hold his knife with the blade sticking out of the gap, at the ready just in case.

The space inside is confining. Carl is wedged into the back corner of the trunk with their bags, and Rick has to keep his knees and neck bent at angles that don’t agree with his aging body. They stay like that, barely breathing, making no sound, for what feels like hours but is probably barely twenty minutes as they wait for the herd to pass.

Finally, the groans and hissing die away, and Rick allows himself to relax infinitesimally. He peers out from under the lid of the trunk at the now moonlit stretch of road: not a walker in sight.

“We should stay here for the night. Can’t risk lookin’ for better shelter,” he says softly. “I’ll take first watch. You get some sleep.” It’s the most he’s said to his son all day.

Carl just nods, shifts around to find a more comfortable position. Rick’s not sure how it’s possible in the narrow space, but Carl seems to make a concerted effort not to let any part of his body come into contact with his father’s. For some reason, that sends a pang through Rick’s heart.

Rick readjusts as well, bringing one of the bags behind him so he has something to lean against. It’s better for his neck, but his legs are still cramped. He leaves his knife wedged through the opening of the trunk so he can keep watch through the slit.

Only a few minutes have passed when he hears something, a chattering. It takes him a moment to realize it’s Carl’s teeth.

With the tension of waiting for the herd to pass Rick barely registered the temperature change, but now, with sun down, he suddenly feels just how cold it is.

He sighs. He can just make out his son’s form in the dark, holding himself and shivering.

“C’mere.”

Carl looks at him but doesn’t move. Rick holds his arm wide, jerks his head in invitation.

“You’re freezin’,” he observes.

Carl hesitates, then crawls forward. He awkwardly attempts to turn himself around, fumbling over the obstacles of their bags and his father’s limbs, and eventually ends up settled between Rick’s legs, leaning back stiffly against his chest.

Rick feels a stab of remorse at the rigidity in his son’s body. Normally, their position wouldn’t be an issue. They’ve had to squeeze together before, for lack of space or for warmth; their constant close proximity to each other is just another fact of life. But suddenly Carl is all too aware and unsure of the contact; Rick can sense it in the anxiety radiating off of him.

Rick wraps his arm around his son’s torso, trying to provide some warmth and some assurance that this is okay, he doesn’t have to shy away, things haven’t changed.

Only, they have. Rick is fairly certain of that.

He can’t take back what he did last night. As much as he might wish he could, he can’t. And when he thinks back to how desperate his son sounded, how needy, how _pained_ , he wonders if he could really find it in himself to do any differently, given a second chance. Because Carl in need, in pain, has always been his weakness. He’d do anything to take it away, to provide for him, to protect him, not only from the external threats that lurk around every corner, but from the darkness that lurks inside them both. Rick knows it well, knows how difficult it can be to find a way out once you’ve sunk that low, to that place where no light reaches. He’s been there, and by some miracle—mostly Carl—he’s been able to come back from it. He’ll die before he lets his son sink into that place, too. He’ll be Carl’s lifeline, in any way he needs to be.

But that doesn’t mean that what he’s done sits well with him. Rick can’t stop turning it over in his mind, wondering if he could have changed things. If not last night, then before; maybe if they’d only talked, if he’d made more of an effort to connect with his son, find out how he was feeling, even last year or the year before; if only he’d been able to hold on to Alexandria, to their family, to Judith; if only he hadn’t lost Lori, if only he’d been able to protect his family from the start; if, if, if.

It’s no use wondering about “what ifs” now, though. Now he’s here, hiding in a car trunk with the only person he has left, trying to convince the both of them that they’re going to be alright, that they can get through whatever changes his actions have brought. Together. Because that’s the only way they’ve ever done anything.

Rick is pulled from his whirlwind thoughts by a tickling against his neck. It’s Carl’s breath, steady and warm against his stubble. His son’s head has turned on his shoulder and his nose is barely grazing Rick’s jaw.

Carl’s body is slack in Rick’s arms now, nothing but heat and weight; Rick thinks he’s long since fallen asleep. He doesn’t want to disturb his son, but much as he hates to admit it, the breath on his neck is like slow torture. It takes him straight back to the mattress they shared last night, to Carl’s panting and gasping against his skin. If Rick was cold before, he’s not anymore. His skin prickles with sickly heat. He swallows heavily, tries to shift his head away ever so slightly.

He hears a stutter in the rhythm of Carl’s breathing and stills, praying he hasn’t woken his son. He only releases his own breath once he hears Carl’s resume its measured pattern.

There’s barely time to feel relieved, though, because not a moment later Carl is shifting his head closer, and suddenly Rick can feel his nose pressed right below his ear and his _lips_ open and moist against his neck. No intention behind them, but nonetheless real and searing in their touch.

Carl sighs deeply into Rick’s skin, and Rick _shudders_. His gut clenches, and with creeping horror he apprehends the pressure in his groin. It’s just as it was last night, when the fervency of the act and the intimate contact made him grow hard; he’d ignored it, willed it away, thankful that Carl didn’t notice or offer to do anything about it. Rick is surprised at his body’s mutiny—he developed better control than this decades ago—because it is, after all, a purely physical response. There’s nothing he wants less than to be turned on by anything to do with his own son.

When the pounding of his heart in his ears finally subsides, he realizes something is different. Carl’s exhales are no longer deep and even, but shallow and labored. Rick tenses, praying his partial erection isn’t noticeable. He doesn’t dare look at his son to ascertain whether he’s awake.

A moment later, he learns the answer. Carl shifts, ever so slightly, and a feather-light touch ghosts down the inside of Rick’s thigh.

Rick’s muscles spasm and his stomach nearly turns inside out as he chokes out a warning “ _Carl_.”

“It’s okay,” comes the heavy whisper against his jaw. Gooseflesh shivers out from Rick’s spine to the tip of every extremity.

Before Rick has a chance to respond, Carl moves his hand, cups his father firmly through his jeans. “I can—”

“Don’t.” Rick’s breathing is shaky. He’s sweating and his chest aches with the effort of _not_ pushing up into that warm, tender touch. He’s never loathed himself more.

“But you’re—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he grates out again, emphatically, because he can’t hear his son tell him he’s hard. He knows it all too well.

Carl lessens the pressure from his hand, but doesn’t move it away. Rick can feel the uncertainty setting in.

Rick licks his lips. “You don’t—” his voice breaks. He starts again. “You don’t have to do that.” He tries to seem resolute, but it’s difficult when his voice is so ragged and pleading.

“But… I _want_ to…” Carl sounds so small. It breaks Rick’s heart.

“I don’t—” Rick has to swallow down the lump in his throat before he can get out the words. “I don’t want you to.”

Carl lets out a little puff of air, like the wind’s been knocked out of him. He withdraws his hand, and suddenly they’re back at zero, with Carl straining every muscle away from his father’s touch.

Rick doesn’t hesitate to pull his son close once more. Carl complies after a second, body pliant even as he turns his face away.

Rick buries his nose in his hair. “S’okay, s’okay,” he murmurs. He doesn’t stop cradling him, even when he feels the wetness of tears as he strokes his son’s cheek, even long after Carl has fallen asleep in his arms.

…

They make it back to camp in good time the next day. Carl distances himself from Rick; Rick doesn’t fight it. He’s too tired, too tired to deal with what their closeness means, the tension it inevitably brings.

When Suzanne greets him with a grin and an unsubtle finger in his belt loop, it’s all too easy for Rick to just let go and follow her into her trailer.

It takes him a while to get lost in her, to forget about Carl when every caress, every gasp, every sound of need reminds him of his son, but by the time they’re in the thick of it he’s just about succeeded, focused on her softness, her femaleness that contrasts so sharply to his son’s angular body.

That’s when he glances up at the window, and sees Carl.

The shutter isn’t closed all the way, but no one would be able to see in, unless they meant to. Carl clearly meant to.

Rick knows that Carl knows he sees him, but Carl doesn’t look away. Neither does Rick. He doesn’t stop fucking Suzanne into the cot either. If anything, he thrusts harder. And he can hear the words, clear as if Carl were speaking them in his ear.

_Don’t you ever want something more?_

_What does it feel like to be loved, physically, by someone who really loves you?_

_Show me._

Rick is barely aware of the woman beneath him. All he’s aware of is Carl’s eye, unblinking, staring back at him, pulling him over the brink hard and fast.

His eyes squeeze shut as he spills, but as soon as he can open them again he glances back at the window. Carl is gone.

As he lies over Suzanne, catching his breath, Rick almost has to wonder if he imagined that he was ever there.

He doesn’t stay the night in Suzanne’s bed; it’s one of their unspoken rules. He stalls as much as he can, though. When Rick finally makes his way back to the trailer he shares with his son, he breathes a sigh of relief to find that Carl is already asleep.

Rick stares at him for a long moment, all sorts of questions and half-formed thoughts swirling through his mind. Before he can begin picking them apart or following them to any dangerous conclusions, he stumbles across the narrow room and falls heavily onto his own cot. He’s unconscious within seconds.

…

“How was she?”

Rick pauses with his spoon halfway to his mouth. He doesn’t look up as Carl takes his seat across from him at their modest table and digs into his own bowl of breakfast porridge. These are the first words his son has spoken to him in nearly twenty-four hours.

Rick considers asking who Carl is referring to, and realizes it would be pointless.

“Fine,” he says tersely. He finishes his bite.

“Just fine?” Carl’s tone is indecipherable.

“Jus’ fine.”

They eat in silence a while. Rick hopes Carl won’t push it. He doesn’t particularly relish the idea of being grilled on what happened last night, of digging into why, of all the things he could and should have done, he simply maintained eye contact with his son as he watched him _having sex_ with a woman.

But Carl doesn’t bring it up. Instead, he says quietly, “Can I ask you something?”

Rick nearly says no, but decides that would hardly be the mature thing.

“Yeah.”

Carl hesitates, stirring the porridge with his spoon over and over, playing with his food. It makes him seem much younger than he is, which makes Rick grimace.

Carl has clearly chosen his words carefully when he speaks. “Why do you choose that over being with someone you love? Wouldn’t it be better?”

Rick sighs through his nose. “Carl—”

“Are you disgusted by me?” This time Carl is looking straight at him, voice and eyes both challenging, but hiding something deeper, a vulnerability Rick wouldn’t be able to detect if he didn’t know his son so well.

“By the thought of being with me? Is that it?” Carl continues before Rick can answer, or maybe before he can lose his nerve. He swallows. “Look, I’m just trying to understand,” he adds solemnly. “I respect your decision, but please, help me understand it.” Just like that, he appears to age ten years before Rick’s eyes. It still unnerves him how his son can do that, shift so quickly between child and man; he’s been doing it since Rick handed him his first gun.

Rick pauses, taking in his son’s grim features, before breathing, “I’m not disgusted by you, no.”

Carl swallows again, and this time Rick swears he can see his lip tremble before he asks, “Do you regret it?” Rick has to admire how he manages to keep his voice clear and even, his gaze steady.

Rick considers, shakes his head. “No.”

It’s the truth. It nearly surprises him, but that night on the mattress in the abandoned cabin is just another moment in all their shared memories, just another layer to this thing between them, this bond, this gravity. Maybe a complicated, messy one, but not something to regret. Rick could never regret helping his son, as he’d needed to be helped in that instance.

Carl’s lips part, maybe in surprise, maybe in relief. “Then what?” he asks softly. His eye is shining and so very, very blue, like Rick’s own. “What is it? Why won’t you?”

Rick folds his hands before him on the tabletop, looks down at them for a long moment.

“Because… it’d feel like givin’ up,” he rasps out at last.

Carl is silent, waiting for an explanation.

Rick sighs, scratches his forehead with a thumb. “I want you to be happy, Carl. But admittin’ to myself that the only way for you to be happy—is for _us_ to be together?” He pinches the bridge of his nose, smooths his hand over his beard, shakes his head. “I can’t do that. I want more for you. I want you to have a life, I want you to find someone you’re happy with.” He looks up at Carl at last, at his single, sad eye. “It would feel like givin’ up on that,” he whispers.

Carl drops his gaze to the table, processing. He frowns. “It doesn’t have to mean giving up. It doesn’t have to be forever, even. It could just be for now, until I find those things. It wouldn’t be giving up,” he insists, looking back at his father.

Rick squints, purses his lips. “Doesn’t work like that. You cross that line, there’s no goin’ back. There’s no comin’ back from that, Carl.”

“But haven’t you already crossed it?”

It stings like a slap in the face. Rick meets his son’s glare with a firm look of his own.

“Maybe I put a foot over it, yeah. But there’s a difference between that and leapin’ across. There _has_ to be,” he stresses. “I can live knowin’ I’ve stepped over it, jus’ once. But I’m still followin’ the line.”

Rick steels himself as he gazes into his son’s eye. He _is_ following the line, even if he’s hugging it a little close. He won’t let whatever is happening between them change that. This is Carl’s future. It’s too important.

Finally, Carl looks away. “Okay,” he says quietly, and Rick can’t help but flinch at the disappointment in his voice.

Carl avoids him for the rest of the day, but Rick tells himself that his son will come around. He has to. Because Rick can feel himself unraveling with the distance between them, and he knows Carl is the one pulling the strings, whether he means to or not.


End file.
